SWEET DILEMMA
When
it comes to Diwali bingeing, the deal is not sealed unless there's sweets.
While every one loves meetha and it's hard to avoid it this season, there are
tons of ways to have your cake and not eat it too, i.e., it is possible to have
sweets, feel light, and not add too many kilos. Here's how...
SWEET THIS...
If
you have one eye on a healthy Diwali this year, keep the other one trained at
picking out sweets that are, well, only sweet. The trick to having a lighter
holiday season is to differentiate between desserts that have only -or mainly
-sugar, and those that have sugar and fat. Stick to just sugar-based desserts
to avoid a bloated post Diwali season. Dark chocolate, plain sandesh, mishti
doi, rosagolla, jellies and custards are examples of sugar-only desserts.
...NOT THIS
Watch
out for desserts that have both sugar and fats, though. For example, gulab jamuns
are first fried then preserved in sugary syrup. Any sweet that has a high ghee
oil fat or butter content is best avoided. This includes cakes, pastries,
mousses, mithais soaked in ghee, malai, khoa, pure butter, heavy mawas,
concentrates from milk and foods with condensed milk. You get the picture,
right?
THE SUGAR-FREE TRAP
To
me, sugar-free mithai is a bit like that 1000-laddi stack that never went off!
You get excited opening the box, but when it doesn't work, it can be quite
deflating. Sugar-free versions of sweets, likewise, replaces the sugar with
double -or at least copious amounts of -fat to maintain the taste factor, and
in doing so, they make you gain weight instead of helping you shed it.
Diwali
is about spreading love.
And
what better way to spread a bit of love than making some thing yourself?
Experiment a little to add new twists this sea son for a healthier you.
BIG DADDY OF
HOLIDAY SEASON
If
you think that the party is pretty much over, you may have noticed that I have
not yet mentioned the Big Daddy of the holiday season dry fruits. The minute
you dry fruits, they become more nutrient dense, and by implication, are
healthier options to traditional sweets. Mithais and desserts made of dry
fruits like dates and dried figs are yummy alternatives. Try date rolls (dry
fruit wrapped in dates), dates stuffed with apricots as well dry fruit chikkis,
dry fruit puddings and other similar options.
So
many low-fat dry fruit desserts can be made at home. There's nothing difficult
about caramelising sugar and adding finelychopped dry fruit and making chikki
out of it. You can even make chikki balls or date-and-nut purees. Mishti doi is
often made at home and so are homemade kheer, phirnis and halwas, where you can
control the oil and ghee portions. You can also experiment with easy-to-make
online recipes of frozen fruit jellies and popsicles. The list is unlimited...
|
by
Pooja Makhija
|
|
TL1NOV15
|
No comments:
Post a Comment